You are viewing your 1 free article this month. Login to read more articles.
W H Smith has said it expects its website to “be live again shortly” following its temporary trading blackout.
The retailer took its whole website offline following a report on the Mail on Sunday which said offensive, pornographic e-books by self-published authors could be found alongside children’s literature when searching under the term "daddy".
W H Smith has told The Bookseller it was in the process of reviewing the ranges on its website and would not reopen it until “we are confident that completely robust screening processes are in place to filter out inappropriate content”.
The retailer added: “For clarity, we are working closely with our e-book partner, Kobo, however we are also ensuring that our own filters from the Kobo feed are adequate. We are close to completing our content review and expect the website will be live again shortly.”
Retail analyst Nick Bubb told The Bookseller that the website shut-down was “very embarrassing” for W H Smith, but, he added: “I don't think the practical damage will be huge, as the website is such a small part of the business.”
Kobo has reacted to the controversy by pulling all the self-published titles off its e-book platform while it assessed titles to see if they complied with its rules. The ones that do will be re-released within a week. The move has caused outrage amongst the self-publishing community on Twitter, with many writing in other genres angered they have been unfairly penalised. Some small presses have also seen their titles removed from the Kobo platform despite not publishing in the erotica genre.
Alliance of Independent Publishers founder Orna Ross earlier said: “Many of our members' livelihoods are being affected while we wait for W H Smith to solve a problem of their own making. This disproportionately affects UK members as many of the questionable titles seem to be still for sale in other territories."
A holding message on the WH Smith website currently reads: "Last week we were made aware that a number of unacceptable titles were appearing on our website through the Kobo website that has an automated feed to ours.
"This is an industry wide issue impacting retailers that sell self published eBooks due to the explosion of self publishing, which in the main is good as it gives new authors the opportunity to get their content published. However we are disgusted by these particular titles, find this unacceptable and we in no way whatsoever condone them."